Burt Bacharach: The popfather -/After a tragic start to his year, legendary tunesmith Burt Bacharach is finally coming to Auckland to play his pop classics. - It's inevitable really. You get the warning from the star's people about no questions about his personal life. But once in interview, it's hard to get the star off his personal life and back on to what made him a star. That's what happens when Burt Bacharach, God of timeless sophisticated pop, comes on the line for our 20-minute interview. The chat starts with a gentle enough inquiry. One about what keeps the man - whose timeless 1960s hits with lyricist Hal David made them second only to Lennon and McCartney as last century's greatest songwriting partnership - still touring. Almost immediately the gravelly voiced Bacharach is addressing the tragic reason why his Auckland concert was postponed earlier this year - his eldest daughter Nikki by second wife Angie Dickinson committed suicide, having struggled all her life with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.

Children’s antipsychotic drug use scrutinised -  A world-first nationwide study of children’s treatment with “atypical antipsychotic” drugs is providing new insights into why they are being prescribed and what adverse reactions can result.  The Intensive Medicines Monitoring Programme (IMMP) study investigated the safety and use of the drugs in all under-16-year-olds in New Zealand prescribed them between April and July in 2003. Adverse reactions in the children were monitored until the end of November 2004 and doctors were surveyed on what particular diagnoses and symptoms prompted the prescriptions. Co-author Dr Mira Harrison-Woolrych says this is the first study anywhere to paint a comprehensive, real-life picture of how the increasingly-prescribed second-generation antipsychotics are being used in children. Their findings appear in the latest edition of the international journal, Drug Safety.

Dad's plea for help with autistic son / TEARS filled Wally Hannam'seyes yesterday as he described watching his autistic teenage son ``pacing like a caged animal'' in Geelong's Swanston Centre. - The Belmont father said his 16-year-old son Chris had been in the psychiatric care centre for two weeks, after he began hallucinating and became agitated. But he said his much-loved teenage child did not belong in a facility designed to provide acute psychiatric care for adults. ``It's so inappropriate for Chris to be there,'' Mr Hannam said yesterday, ``But he's stuck there. `He's been there now for 13 nights.'' Mr Hannam is campaigning to have Chris moved to a facility for young people, where medical staff were used to caring for people with autism. He was horrified to learn there wasn't a bed available anywhere in Victoria in a facility that could provide for Chris' needs _ his autism and his mental illness.   `The seclusion room where he is at now is driving him out of his skull, because he's locked up,'' he said, ``He doesn't understand. ``With autism, you need structure, you need routine, you need quiet.  `But yesterday, there were patients in there hitting the walls, banging to doors, screaming. `It's an appalling situation.''

Dark side to shots - IIs there is a dark side to immunization -- what would they be?  If the immunizations were so wonderful and safe, why would the manufacturers of immunizations want total immunity against lawsuits-which they have consistently requested from Congress and received.  This is the first cause for suspicion that the immunizations aren't safe or why would they need to be totally protected from lawsuits? These immunizations are a total profit to the big pharmaceutical companies.  There are 33 doses of nine different vaccines that our children are requested to take before attending school. There have been no studies done to address the issue of multiple dose affects on the babies or infants that are taking them.  A new privately-funded survey finds vaccinated U.S. children have a significantly higher risk of neurological disorders -- including autism -- than unvaccinated children; 2.5 times higher for vaccinated boys between the ages of 4-17.

Easing The Autism Stigma - When Matthew Nadler sang his bar mitzvah portion, the Hebrew rang clearly through the air and no one in the sanctuary could keep from crying. Matthew stood on the bima, confident, pitch-perfect and proud, “a real mensch,” as his father, Allen, later described him.  But after the service, Matthew and his family didn’t adjourn to the typical party full of teenage friends and food.  Matthew has autism and, now 15, looks much younger. Though the handsome, blue-eyed teen is quick to pick up a dropped pencil, offer a drink or say “thank you,” he has trouble making eye contact, conversing or fitting into many social situations, and as a result finds it difficult to make friends with peers his age. For Matthew’s parents, the shock of his diagnosis quickly turned to education for themselves and their son. They found the best services and became advocates for autistic children, ultimately, accepting Matthew’s limitations while embracing the joy he brings them.  “Like a poker game, this is the hand I was dealt,” says Allen Nadler of his son’s autism. “But unlike a poker game where I could fold my hand, this is a hand I have to play.” Matthew Nadler is part of a rapidly growing population in the New York metropolitan area and throughout the country with autism, a diagnosis that has been exploding in recent years and is estimated to affect approximately 1 in 150 children in the United States today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Family wins plea for fence variance - Seven-year-old Molly St. Claire soon will be able to safely play in her own backyard. Molly has severe autism, which prompted her parents to ask the village earlier this year to bend its rules restricting installation of fences. After listening to their story, the village board decided this week to do just that. The St. Claire family has a playset in the backyard of their Hilltop Lane home. However, without a fence to ensure that she does not wander off the property and onto a nearby three-way intersection, Molly has not been able to really enjoy the playset or explore the backyard. Village ordinances allow fences only around swimming pools, dog runs, patios or decks. In 1998, the board approved a barrier-type fence in the rear yards of homes that abut Randall Road.

Gene Identified For Crohn's Disease In Children - Pediatrics researchers have identified a gene variant that raises a child's risk of Crohn's disease, a chronic and painful condition attributed to inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. The research reinforces previous results by German researchers, who found the same gene variant associated with the adult form of Crohn's disease. Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and The University of Pennsylvania reported their results in a letter in the August issue of the journal Gut.  "Because Crohn's disease is complex, with multiple genes interacting with each other and with environmental factors, it's important to sort out specific genes and to replicate previous findings," said the study's first author, Robert N. Baldassano, M.D., director of the Center for Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Children's Hospital. "There are different types of Crohn's disease, so classifying types by genetic profiles may help us select the most appropriate treatments for each patient."  The study compared the genomes of 143 children with Crohn's disease to genomes of 282 matched control subjects. The study team found that 64 percent of children with Crohn's disease had a specific variant form of the gene ATG16L1, compared with 52 percent of the healthy children. The odds ratio for children with the gene variant was 1.62 compared to control children, meaning that those who have the variant were 62 percent more likely to have Crohn's disease than children with the more common allele. A separate test that analyzed trios (a Crohn's patient and both parents) also found an association between the ATG16L1 gene variant and disease symptoms. This finding strengthened the results of the pediatric case-control study.

Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance - Eleven years ago, when Elaine Hall adopted a toddler boy from a Russian orphanage, she didn't know anything about autism. Today, she is in the vanguard of helping children with this increasingly widespread condition--known for derailing the ability to communicate--find unprecedented ways to emote and connect through the performing arts.  The Miracle Project, launched by Hall just three years ago, is already making headlines. An award-winning documentary about the program, 'Autism: The Musical,' premiered last spring at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. It follows the lives of five autistic kids and their families, including Hall and her son, Neal, now 13, throughout the staging of a 'Miracle Project' production. HBO acquired the film and plans to air it next year after a limited run in theatres.  'I always believed in the potential for this program but our initial workshop was truly a 'leap of faith,'' says Hall, who lives in Santa Monica. Many of her students and volunteers are residents of Pacific Palisades.

It's Like This... Autism And Vaccines - I am the queen of analogies. It's part of my writing and speaking style. If you ask me for directions I'll tell you to "Take a left at the elementary school that looks like a prison." When an email acquaintance asks what I look like I'll say, "My hair is like snakes, my eyes are the size of dinner plates, and I'm as curvy as a Q-tip.Yesterday, though, I met my match. I have a new job editing a site for autism news. And one of our writers sent me a post that just blew me away. You can read it here. Nancy Hokkanen came up with one of the greatest analogies ever to describe the autism and vaccine controversy and how it feels to us parents of kids with autism. She compared it to the Catholic Church's cover up of decades of sexual abuse.

‘I worried about bills and feeding my children – not life in my 60s’ - At the age of 52, Carolynn Cruickshank-Gray is pacing her work commitments carefully so that she doesn't burn out in the next 15 years. She will be among the first group of women - those born after April 6, 1955 - who will have to work until the age of 65 before becoming eligible for a state pension. In fact, she expects to be working well beyond the age of 65 to make ends meet. The only private pension provision she has is a total of about £5000 in the pension funds of two small companies where she worked for a couple of years. That is no comfort: quite the opposite. "My big fear is that if I should be on my own in my old age, this tiny pension will have the effect of taking me just above benefit levels," she says from her home in Lochgelly, which is the base for her contract work.

Misconduct hearing starts in Britain - Uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine plummeted in Britain after doctor and researcher Andrew Wakefield suggested in 1998 that it could be linked to autism —suggestion that made huge waves in the media and with the public. Subsequent studies have ruled out a link between MMR and autism, and the majority of medical opinion now firmly rejects Wakefield's hypothesis. This week, Wakefield stands before a hearing at the General Medical Council (GMC) — the body that regulates doctors in the United Kingdom.- Uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine plummeted in Britain after doctor and researcher Andrew Wakefield suggested in 1998 that it could be linked to autism — a suggestion that made huge waves in the media and with the public. Subsequent studies have ruled out a link between MMR and autism, and the majority of medical opinion now firmly rejects Wakefield's hypothesis. This week, Wakefield stands before a hearing at the General Medical Council (GMC) — the body that regulates doctors in the United Kingdom. Who is being charged with what? a

MMR doctor ‘not paediatrically qualified’MMR doctor ‘not paediatrically qualified’ - Vulnerable children were subjected to “inappropriate and invasive” tests by doctors who were in breach of “some of the most fundamental rules in medicine”, a hearing was told yesterday.  Dr Andrew Wakefield, who sparked the MMR controversy, did not have paediatric qualifications and had not worked as a clinical doctor for several years when he ordered the tests, the General Medical Council’s fitness to practice panel was told.  His role was as a research doctor and he had no right to investigate the children, who did not undergo proper neurological or psychiatric assessments beforehand, it heard.

NDP outraged over McGuinty's $2.4 million broken promise - NDP MPP Shelley Martel is outraged that the McGuinty government spent $2.4 million on lawyers to fight parents of children with autism in court, instead of providing IBI treatment that Dalton McGuinty
promised them. "It's scandalous that Dalton McGuinty squandered $2.4 million of public money on lawyers in a cynical attempt to break an election promise made to children with autism. That money could have funded IBI treatment for 50 children for a year," said Martel. Martel said Dalton McGuinty should never have dragged parents and their vulnerable children through the courts, at great expense to the public and the families, just so he could break a promise. "It's appalling that Dalton McGuinty's priority was to waste millions of dollars of public money fighting parents in court, instead of providing children with autism with the treatment they needed," said Martel.

Patient's brother sues company that managed Oakwood - A Kentucky man is suing the company that formerly managed the Communities at Oakwood, saying that the company failed to protect his disabled brother who sustained multiple injuries, including a broken nose, at the facility. The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Frankfort, alleges that, for more than a year, Tim Cox, 29, who suffers from autism and other disorders, was beaten and restrained on multiple occasions at the Somerset facility. This is the third lawsuit filed in federal court against Liberty Healthcare that accuses the company of failing to stop ongoing abuse of residents at Oakwood, the state's largest home for the mentally disabled. Liberty oversaw management of Oakwood from November 2005 to November 2006.

Pesticides and Schools: a "Tragic" Health Hazard - Pesticides in schools are a pervasive, unnecessary health hazard, said Marc Lame, an entomologist and professor in Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs. "Over 80 percent of schools in America are applying pesticides on a regular basis, whether they have a pest problem or not," he said. "This is tragic not only because of the well-documented link between pesticides and health problems in children, such as asthma and neurological disorders, but also because pesticides generally do not work in a preventive manner in the school environment. Applying pesticides does not prevent pests from coming in, so using them when pests are not present does nothing other than expose children and staff to toxic chemicals."* Background: The most widely used insecticides are nerve poisons, which cause nerves to fire in an uncontrolled manner and disrupt endocrine (hormone) systems, Lame said. Prolonged exposure to these chemicals can result in similar effects on the human nervous system, with symptoms ranging from vomiting to severe breathing problems. Although research is limited, these endocrine disrupting pesticides are suspected in problems ranging from ADHD to autism to infertility, Lame said. Exposure during childhood carries the greatest risk. "The thing to remember is that it is not just a question of children being smaller than adults and getting more exposure pound-for-pound. The even more serious issue is that their nervous systems are still developing, so they are especially susceptible to nerve poisons," he said. * Solution: Lame said pest problems are better managed with an integrated approach that involves recognition and remediation of conditions that attract pests or allow pests to enter facilities. "It's common sense pro-action rather than toxic reaction," he said. Lame serves as a consultant for schools and environmental health agencies around the country, helping them implement such programs through a process known as Integrated Pest Management (IPM). He is also the author of a book on pest management in schools, A Worm in the Teacher's Apple: Protecting America's School Children from Pests and Pesticides (Authorhouse, 2005).

Pitt Psychologist Explores Early Indicators for Autism in Infants - Researchers have proven that babies who have an older sibling with autism have an elevated risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) themselves. Now, University of Pittsburgh associate professor of psychology Jana Iverson is looking for early identifiers for ASD in babies younger than age two who have an older sibling with autism. She will be looking at patterns of vocal, motor, and communicative skills and how they may vary in infants with ASD over a five-year period.